Brawn: No ten teams, no race

NEWS STORY04/03/2020

As fears mount that Ferrari and AlphaTauri could be forced to miss the Vietnam and Bahrain Grands Prix due to restrictions being imposed as a result of the coronavirus, F1 managing director, Ross Brawn has said that despite the fact that a race featuring just 16 cars could still go ahead, this will not be the case.

In the last 24 hours, Vietnam and Bahrain have both announced restrictions on travellers from a number of countries, most notably Italy, which is home to both Ferrari and AlphaTauri.

"All travellers entering Vietnam from China, South Korea, Italy, and Iran must carry out medical declarations and 14-day medical quarantine before entering the country," declared the Vietnam Tourist Board, while the Bahrain immigration and health authorities have requested the names and flight details of all "F1 personnel who work for teams, administrators, broadcasters or media who have been to, or transited through, China (including Hong Kong), Iran, Iraq, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Egypt, Lebanon and Thailand in the 14 days before their arrival in Bahrain".

"If a team is prevented from entering a country we can't have a race," Brawn told Reuters. "Not a Formula One world championship race, anyway, because that would be unfair.

"Obviously if a team makes its own choice not to go to a race, that's their decision," he added. "But where a team is prevented from going to a race because of a decision of the country then it's difficult to have a fair competition."

On the same day that Vietnam announced its restrictions, officials in Australia insisted that the season-opener would go ahead as planned.

However, as the virus continues to spread with alarming unpredictability, it is the respective governments and World Health Organisation that will have the final word.

Confirming that F1 officials are working with the health authorities in Vietnam, Brawn said: "They want the race to happen but also they've got to protect their population. So we're looking at what solutions we can find to make sure everybody is comfortable with the arrangements.

"There's a lot of things going on at the moment and it changes on a day-by-day basis. It's difficult to be definitive now but we're going to find solutions.

"It's a very serious situation, so I don't want to underplay it. But we're trying to have races. We've got to do them in a responsible way.

"We're minimizing the number of people in the paddock, we're asking the teams to send a minimum number of people they need to a race," he added.

It's understood that F1 is intending chartering a plane to take those F1 people based in Italy direct to Bahrain with all undergoing screening on arrival.